A Better Option
by lightblue-Nymphadora
Summary: 100 Days of AUs. Tonks leaves the Yule Ball. Charlie/Tonks friendship.


**_LbN: 100 Days of AUs. Prompt was "Ditched by a prom date". Just a quick one. Happy reading!_**

She wasn't… she didn't…. Tonks sighed. She wasn't into stuff like this. It was ridiculous. Just her luck that they would decide to hold the Yule Ball for the first time in over thirty years while she was at Hogwarts. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy dressing up from time to time - she loved the glamour of it all. It was her classmates' inane twittering about it that drove her crazy. Brilliant, powerful witches, the lot of them, turned into simpering schoolgirls at the prospect of a dance. She'd debated taking a page out of Charlie Weasley's book and not going, but then…. Well, it had come out of nowhere. It really had. She really wasn't going to go, but Asgard Entwhistle had asked her just two weeks before. He was Keeper for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, gorgeous, a great student, if a little pompous. But he'd been so sweet, when he'd asked. And she'd been blown away by the fact that he hadn't found a date yet. She'd said yes, and thus, was now stuffed into the designer dress her mum had bought for her.

"Zip me, Tonks?" Amanda asked.

"Sure. You think I should wear my hair short," she morphed, "Or long?" She morphed again.

"Long. With curls. And the blonde highlights," her friend said.

Tonks morphed to each request, grinning brightly. "Are you dressing me up for Entwhistle or for yourself?"

"Keep dreaming, Nymphadora. Come on, we'll all walk down together."

"See? Here I was trying to woo you, and you go and ruin the romance by uttering my first name."

"That was you wooing me? You need practice, my friend."

Tonks laughed and followed her out of their dormitory.

They met up with the rest of the sixth years and made their way up to the Great Hall. Most people stuck within their House for dates, but there were a couple of them going with Gryffindors or Slytherins. Tonks looked around when she got to the entranceway. There were plenty of people milling around, even as McGonagall tried to shoo them into the Great Hall. She didn't see Asgard.

And then she did, and really wished she hadn't.

He was coming down the stairs, wrapped arm in arm with a pretty Slytherin girl Tonks vaguely recognized. He grinned brightly when he saw her.

"Oh my god!" he hooted. "You actually turned up?"

As one, the students swivelled their heads to look at her. She focused all her attention on staying morphed, so no one would see her hair go red.

"You didn't seriously think I wanted to come with you, did you?" he called, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Why on earth would I want to get my feet stepped on all night by the rainbow klutz? Why would anyone? Merlin, I'm starting to believe what I hear about all Hufflepuffs being a bit thick."

At that the sniggers that had been just on the edge of hearing turned into full blown laughter.

Tonks could feel the edges of her hair turning, and she turned to march through the laughing group.

Entwhistle threw up a shield to keep her there. "Wait, don't go. I'm sure you've got loads of dance moves to teach us. Or are you providing the entertainment with some more pig faces? Come on in and show off a little."

"Move the shield, now," she said as calmly as possible.

"Make me," he sneered.

Faster than a hippogriff rampage, Tonks had her wand out and had blasted Entwhistle back into his own shield. She cast three quick hexes at him. All were relatively harmless, but the boy put his hands up in surrender after sprouting tentacles in a couple of uncomfortable places. The shield vanished, and Tonks strode through the now silent crowd.

She didn't stop when she got to the front doors, but walked out into the cold night air, ignoring McGonagall's cries behind her. She cast a warming charm and took the path down to the Quidditch pitch. Even with the protective bubble of heat, she could still feel the chill when she made it into the stands.

There was only one other person there, and he flew over and stopped just in front of her, hovering on his broomstick.

"You clean up nice, Tonks," Charlie said.

"Thanks, Chuck," she said.

"What's happened? Why aren't you at the dance?"

"Oh, I just figured I'd get some fresh air. See if you'd broken your neck on that thing," she said, waving her hand toward him.

He grinned at her. "You're a terrible liar, Nymphadora."

"Yeah, well…."

He lost his smile then, and flew closer, dismounting to sit next to her. "What's wrong? You never let me get away with calling you by your first name. No shooting giant slugs at me? No threatening to stick my wand where the sun does not, in fact, shine? What happened?"

"Entwhistle came with another girl, and proceeded to call me a nutjob for thinking anyone would actually want to come with me."

Charlie put an arm around her. "Want me to knock him off his broom next match?"

"Chuck…."

"I can do it, you know. And make it look like an accident. Or at least have Goom pelt him in the nose with a Bludger."

She smiled at the offer. "That's such a Gryffindor response."

"Thank you - I do my best."

"I already made sure he'd be waddling through his dance steps tonight." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Chuck?"

"Yep?"

"We should go nick Butterbeers from the kitchens and build an Exploding Snap house in Binns' classroom."

"Definitely a better option to embarrassing ourselves on the dance floor. Or freezing out here. I'll get the cards if you get the Butterbeer." He stood up and wrapped his cloak around her shoulders. "Don't worry about Entwhistle. He's an idiot."

"Thanks, Chuck."


End file.
